On the Big Red trail ... Beginning ...

When I re-started my encounter with fountain pens, this time more seriously, both as a collector and user, the Montblanc 149 was my grail pen …

I checked out the pen at the Montblanc showroom in Hyderabad and the price was forbidding…my god, I thought…then I felt that I should put aside some money every month and then make this purchase…funny idea, actually…the next time I visited Bangalore, around six months later, I went to William Penn and saw that the price had increased by Rs.5000… wow! 

And this went on… now when I look back I realise that every six months or so, the price would increase by Rs.5000 … and more I tried to reach it, it would move higher…wonderfully funny actually… and my obsession to own the MB149 grew obsessively obsessive … I was obsessed … it was obsessing … then I finally asked Hari, who already had a couple of MBs … bhai, any solution that might obviate this obsession … (wow!) … ever pragmatic, Hari suggested going for a pre-owned MB … (second-hand, re …) … I had to bring this to a close, and so I agreed … (story is becoming too long now… going telegrammatic …) Hari contacted a seller in the US … told me the price … I didn’t have money … I took up a collection among relatives (mainly wife, her father, her brother, and sister … nice people … really…)… raised money … pen came by mail …  transferred money to Hari …  I too happy …

Was I? 

What? 

What? 

Were you what? 

What do you mean? 

You said, ‘Was I?’  I’m asking ‘what?’ 

Oh, that … I was merely ruminating …

What about? 

Was I really happy? 

Weren’t you? 

I think I was … I am, aksherlly… proud owner of an MB 149 and all that … but somewhere, I feel, amidst this obsession to own the 149, I actually went after something that I mightn’t have wanted to …

(haen …?) …

Whats with you, maan?  Mad or what?  You chewed up everybody’s brains talking about this 149 all the time … you shamelessly asked around for money to buy this pen … poor Hari ran around arranging this pen for you … and now you say you actually didn’t want this pen at all…? Dhamag karab aayindara, haule …  

Arre, aisa nahi hai re, bhai … kaiku naraz hora … I wanted this pen badly … no doubt about that … and I bought it … but there is this other pen that I realized later I wanted too … it was always at the back of the my mind … under the surface … subconscious … only that I didn’t know it …

Arre, tu phir se sabku haula banara? Ye kya re bhai tu ‘peeche’ ‘neeche’ bolra …

Na, na … vaisa nahin … tereku kaisa boloon … achcha theekh hai, listen, mein tereku pen ka photo dikhaata hoon … it is a big orangeish-red coloured pen with a ball clip … flat top … flat end …

Kaisa hai?  Zabardast hai na, yaaro?  See how beautiful the pen is … my heart is set on getting one …

Then, whose pen is this? 

This is Hari bhai’s pen … photo bhi usi ka liya hua hai … he bought it two years ago and wrote a review about the pen on fountain pen network … dekho, jaake dekho, aur bhi photos hai is link pe …

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/196559-parker-duofold-big-red-permanite/

Pen ka naam kya hai yaaro …

Arre, yeh Parker Duofold hai … pyaar se pen haule isku Big Red bolte … yeh ispeshal pen hai maloom … kitta bhi khojo dukaanon mein nahin milti … baahir se mangaana padta … bohot meinga hai … 

GAMA Supreme Jumbo - A duofold-y ebonite fountain pen from Gem & Co., Chennai

My good friend Hari sent me pictures of this pen some weeks back…I saw the pictures and went ‘wow’… this pen had that kind of impact on me…the thick flat ends design is something that I can’t resist and I go all misty eyed looking at pics of such pens…for me, the Parker Duofold Big Red is the grail pen as far this design is concerned…but that pen is still a far way off for me…

This is the GAMA Supreme Jumbo Ebonite…made by Gem and Company, Chennai…they have a pens store in Parry’s Corner in Chennai…Gem and Co. have been in the business of pen making, selling, and repairing for the past eighty years…impeccable pedigree…and loads of experience and expertise in all these areas….

Gem and Co. makes fountain pens under the brand name Gama…and my friend Hari says, “GAMA is a pen brand in existence from the 1940's in South India.  In the past they had a nice line of Gold nibbed models such as the Gama Kid, Gama Coronation, Gama Manifold and the Gama Royal. In addition to pocket pens, from time to time they also made some hand turned acrylic desk pens in really limited numbers.”

The Gama Supreme Jumbo Ebonite is part of the new line of ebonite pens released by Gem and Co.  The considerably thinner and shorter Gama Junior Ebonite is also part of this new line.  These pens are released through ASA Pens on ebay India and Hari got a bunch of these heavyweights from ASA and graciously gifted me one.  Hari is also an amateur pen repairer and he used that knowledge to make the pen a much better writer by changing the nib. 

To say that I have been waiting for a pen of this shape, size, and performance would be too much…to say the least…but, yes, this is a kind of dream pen…just look at it…the cap jewel is just the right length, one centimeter longer and it would have that tapering look instead of the handsome full flat look…the barrel end in black ebonite ends in a sort of mini peak…not too much…and, maybe it is a coincidence, but if the browns and blacks on the body were any lighter, the harmony between the black ebonite at the pen ends and the black ripples on the body would have dissipated…the black ripples on the barrel and cap kind of flow into the ebonite stoppers…and look at the ripples!!  I haven’t seen such ripples on an ebonite pen in a long long time…it is just so beautiful to look at…!!  The clip looks so nice and balanced and appropriate…no frills…a straightforward no-nonsense clip that knows it is in the right place…no?  For a brief while I felt a ball clip might have looked better…but I think it is my unfulfilled desire (so far) for a Parker Duofold Big Red that made me transpose that feature onto this pen…this pen so reminds me of the Big Red…

Here are some pictures of this handsome pen…

Small Fountain Pens from Andhra Pradesh - The Deccan Lilliput

There is something about making small fountain pens that catches the fancy of pen makers from Andhra Pradesh…Ratnamson has SS in ebonite,  Guider has Kid in acrylic, and both these penmakers have made ultra mini fountain pens in ebonite too…Deccan has its Bullet…and the Lilliput…

I have been noticing this little fellow for quite some time…once at Abids I almost bought it…when I was looking at the pen closely there Umair said he had used this model when he was a schoolboy… I realized that this was an old Deccan model…only that it was ‘out of print’… or maybe it was there all along and I hadn’t seen it…anyway, some days later when I went to Secunderabad, I saw the Lilliput there too and felt I should pick it up…after I came home, I measured it against the Bullet…Lilliput is shorter than the Bullet by 3/4^th of an inch and is also considerably thinner…

Lilliput is a nice straightforward ebonite pen like most of the Deccan pens…it is an eyedropper pen with an Ambitious nib…the feeder looks good with horizontal fins at the lower half, and finless towards the upper half…the ends are flat, but from this flatness rise two small peaks at both ends…nice little touch there…the clip is slim, narrow, and flat and suits the pen well…but there are no brand markings anywhere…

Lilliput is very close to 4 inches capped…3 ½ inches uncapped…and nearly 4 ¾ inches posted…here are some pictures…

The Lilliput...

Lilliput posted...

Lilliput uncapped...

The nib...

The feeder...

Thin slim flat narrow clip

Deccan Lilliput with my favourite MB 146

Deccan Lilliput with Deccan Bullet